Tristan had in vain endeavoured to persuade the king to leave before
the preliminaries for the fantastic strife had been completed, but
Louis was firm in his determination to remain.
"I would not miss this for the world, man," he had insisted. All his
childlike delight in the adventurous was being sated to the full
this evening, and there was no happier man at that moment in the
kingdom than the man who by strange fortune was its king.
The fight persisted for some minutes that seemed like hours to more
than one of the anxious spectators. Now the room would be steeped in
the deepest silence, and now, as the revealed lantern glowed and the
naked weapons met, some woman's scream or some man's suppressed oath
would fill the place with a sense of watching, eager humanity.
Suddenly, when the tension of watcher and watched was keenest, there
came a mighty crashing at the door and a voice shouted loudly a
summons to open in the king's name.
Tristan knew well enough what the summons meant. "It is the watch,
sire," he whispered to the king.
Thibaut too, groping for his nimble antagonist and beginning to
despair of crushing the man, heard and understood the summons.
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